Thread: Extended Vacation, BW exercise tips please.

Originally Posted by obz

I spent the majority of 2006 cutting. Lost 125 pounds all told.
I got what I considered, a little too skinny.
I always had just wanted to loose weight, but once I got there, I wanted more. The last 4+ months I have been big into lifting and proper bulking. I've been through the stickies, been reading up on topics here as much as I can. I'm using all the great info available here. I've had quite a bit of sucess adding inches to my arms and chest and not my waist. My diet is great and I stick to it. I have a workout routine and PT that is yeilding bennefits and is easy to stick to. The gym is next door to my office, and I have never been stronger or healthier in my life.

Come the 23rd of Jan, I am leaving civilization as I know it for 5 weeks. This trip is a long time in the making and I'm excited beyond belief.

I'm back packing through South America on a shoe string budget. Going through several countries and destinations down south.

This trip is my reward for killing the fat bastard that was controlling my life for so long and striving for my physical potential.

Now, the problem. I do not want to loose ground on all the gains I have made the last 4 months, and I am clueless as to what a good, and easy to impliment BW workout routine should be while down there.

Just pull ups, push ups, crunches and jogging to try and maintain?

Should I just look at it as a chance to cut? (current BF is 11% and change, want 8 or 9% eventually).

Should I just say fuck it, enjoy my reward and assess the damage come march when I get back to Toronto and my easily regulated diet and workout schedule?

Any advice on what I should do with these 5 weeks is greatly appreicated.

I will be staying in hostels, so I will have kitchens at my disposal, local markets should be readily available so diet should be pretty well controllable. S.A. is famous for meats, and the local veggies should be interesting.

Thanks so much in advance for any help!

I'd do body weight squats (one and two leg), lunges, pushups (wide, regular, close), Pullups/Chinups and I'm sure you can find something heavy to grab for some rows and military press. Do three full body routines per week. You worked hard to keep where you are..........don't blow it.

You can do pullups on trees. You can do pushups. You can do one legged squats. You can push a car around in neutral. You can pick up heavy shit and throw it around. You can drag heavy shit on the ground. Check out the other BW thread a few notches down. I mentioned a bunch of bodyweight stuff that can be done.

I bet there are lots of rocks. Start carrying rocks and building pyramids, then taking them apart.

My experience ...

I've spent as much as four months at a time "hiking" through third world countries. I've dropped as much as 50 pounds at a shot (my last trip). I couldn't haul the kinda weight in food I would need to maintain my muscle mass. I did what I could to be calorie conscious from one way point to the next. I tried to set my destinations around my dietary needs as much as was practical but even with that I was still calorie short .... whey short. Six months ago I was 235 pounds and solid ... now I'm about 195 after gaining 10 pounds back. This was from being in a mountainous region with three meals a day. It just takes a lot of energy to cover any kind of distance, so my body had to get that fuel from where ever it could. I couldn't haul a 3500 calorie per day diet around with me. I'm ripped now, but my stat's are much lower. I did a maintenance routine of 400 push-ups and sit ups in the morning one day, + 200 chin-ups and dips the next every other day. My bench is down from 370 to 300.

My circumstances were not normal, but they weren't that far away from what you might expect in South America. You cannot haul the food needed to maintain the dietary needs of a person who's body is conditioned for weight training. In five weeks you'll be back a few pounds lighter and ready to seriously add some muscle mass. Plan it that way and enjoy your stroll ... you’ve earned it.

For S&G's I gotta tell ya that strange things occured to my taste buds . I left liking cola and came back a cream soda fan and now I crave pineapple-guava fruit juice instead of plain old OJ. I used tooooo looooove OJ ... now it tastes like dirt. I dunno WTF is up with that ...